Affiliations: [a]
Shenzhen Center for Chronic Disease Control, Shenzhen, China
| [b]
ZhouKou Central Hospital, ZhouKou, China
| [c]
Shenzhen PET/CT Center of Guangdong Armed Police Corps Hospital, Shenzhen, China
| [d] Chronic disease control of Shenzhen, Shenzhen, China
| [e]
Guangzhou General Hospital of Guangzhou Military Command, Guangzhou, China
Correspondence:
[*]
Corresponding author: Dr Xiang-Dong Li, Guangzhou General Hospital of Guangzhou Military Command, Guangzhou 510010, China. E-mail: 903870332@qq.com and Dr Pu-Xuan Lu, Shenzhen Center for Chronic Disease Control, Shenzhen 518020, China. E-mail: lupuxuan@126.com.
Abstract: OBJECTIVE:To explore the difference of 18F-FDG PET/CT images between the symptomatic and asymptomatic pulmonary tuberculosis, as well as the correlation between the standard uptake value (SUV) and the symptomatic/asymptomatic pulmonary tuberculosis. METHODS:A study dataset of 57 pulmonary tuberculosis cases was retrospectively assembled and analyzed. Among these cases, 30 were diagnosed having symptomatic pulmonary tuberculosis and 27 were asymptomatic pulmonary tuberculosis. PET/CT was performed in all 57 cases. The clinical data, CT images and PET/CT radioactive uptake data were analyzed using statistical data analysis software. RESULTS:All 57 cases showed radioactively high uptake, with the maximum standard uptake value (SUVmax) of the lesion ranging from 1.60 to 27.30 and a mean value of 6.63±4.82. The symptomatic cases had an SUVmax of 8.76±4.97 and the asymptomatic cases had an SUVmax of 4.27±3.39. The SUVmax as well as singular or multiple lesions showed statistical differences between symptomatic and asymptomatic cases. CONCLUSION:The symptomatic pulmonary tuberculosis cases show significantly higher SUVmax than the asymptomatic cases. Based on the criteria of SUVmax greater than 2.0 to define active lesions, 100% of symptomatic cases might have active lesions while 70.4% of asymptomatic cases might have active lesions. Therefore, focused attention should be clinically paid on the asymptomatic cases of pulmonary tuberculosis to avoid miss diagnosis and delayed treatment.
